Falling Down
by cafeanna
Summary: Bakugo goes on a solo mission to Kamino town. / Faint as an old bruise, but the intention of it a clear marker. Izuko has a boyfriend who wants other people to know it. Briefly, he wonders what kind of quirk her big, scary boyfriend has. [Bakugo/Deku, Dabi/Deku] [Part One]


**title: **Falling Down

**genre: **hurt / comfort, family, romance(ish)

**pairings: **one-sided Bakugo/Deku, past Bakugo/Deku, Dabi/Deku

**A/N: **obvi, everyone's a bit aged up here. deku/izuko and bakugo are seventeen. i'm not going to list dabi's age because i'm not going to bitch-out and make him a comfortable age here because this relationship isn't supposed to be right. just know that (as my roommate said) all these characters are cowards in this, so just know i'm making everyone make terrible, terrible decisions.

also, this is some of my worst writing (in my opinion) it's got it's moments, but i just wanted to kickstart this.

* * *

It's a little after three in the afternoon when Bakugo stops outside an apartment building in Kamino prefecture. He has to glance between the building and the picture on his phone for a couple seconds to be sure it's the one he is looking for. He decides, after another minute of glancing between the two, that it is an old picture.

It's more of a townhouse with a split division, the narrow building divided for two tenants in a upstairs-downstairs division; a rusted metal staircase slinks up the side of the building, leading to what assumes what might be another door.

Its not a dump, and Bakugo has passed worse buildings on the way here, but there is something disconcerting about the fact that he _knows _someone who lives here. One, Midoriya Izuko.

He hasn't seen much of Midoriya Izuko since he moved into the dorms of U.A. his first year. Then again, he hasn't seen much of her since they went their separate ways before high school; him to the prestigious hero school and her a math school one town over.

He remembers his mom being loudly proud of her for her practical career choice even amidst having the envy of the neighborhood for his acceptance to U.A.

Bakugo always correlated his mother's fixation with the freckle faced freak with his father's own admission that his mom had always wanted a girl. He remembers how his mother used to dote on the Izuko, pick her birthday presents for him and sit for extended periods while she would rattle of hero trivia over milk and cookies.

Maybe that's why his mother had been adamant that he should go to Kamino town to find her.

Bakugo studies the chipped cement façade, the bars on the windows, the curtains shutting out the light, and tries to judge which might be Izuko's. The numbers have been pried off both doors, but it took a simple process of illimitation for Bakugo to figure that out, but honestly it was becoming more of a hassle than it needed to be.

Not for the first time since he started out on this journey, he is left wondering why, for the umpteenth time, _why _he made the two-hour journey—alone—in order to figure out if the neighbor girl is still alive or not. But then, he remembers his mother's screaming, Mrs. Midoriya's crying, and the general noisiness of the entire encounter in his living room that filed down all the _resistance _and _annoyance _and _common sense _and bought him a two-way ticket to Kamino.

So, now, here he is. In the late afternoon, his jacket tight around his shoulders, and staring at what could possibly be the ugliest building he has ever seen. And he is about to talk to a girl who he hasn't spoken took since, well, junior high.

He thinks of her and sees an area rug of memories, not all of them painting him in the most flattering light. He thinks of her and sees her big, teary eyes and this determination in her brow. Her thinks of her and wonders, hates, but wonders why she stuck around him if he had been so mean, so cruel, so—

He cannot imagine her being the type to _drop out of school _and move out at sixteen to live in a city away from home.

Something must have happened since he had been gone. Something big.

_I'll knock, _he cajoles himself, exhaling. _I'll knock and if she doesn't answer, it's a day wasted and the old hag can come down here herself and drag her back. _

He squares his shoulders, prepares to take a step and—

"Kacchan?"

Bakugo stops.

And turns.

The first thing Bakugo notices is her hair. It's short, short like a boy. Those long tangles of green ringlets snipped into a pageboy cut that curls around her face and down the nape of her neck. Bakugo is surprised to think it suits her. It makes her look more feminine, somehow older.

It takes him another minute to recognize its her, for real this time. Her face is narrower. Her eyes touched by makeup and a reddish tint to her mouth that cannot be natural.

She looks like a negative of the image in his brain. The Midoriya Izuko in his head is all big eyes and freckled elbows, knees knocking in her tartan skirt and baggy school sweater.

The girl in front of him is different.

"What are you doing here?" She draws closer, fingers curling around the strap of her bag. She looks confused, concerned; a heaviness to her brow that irks him.

Bakugo is annoyed to think she looks _pretty_.

Bakugo hesitates, racking his brain for what to say. Instantly, he thinks of Inko, her big weepy eyes and the way her voice shook when she spoke of her estrange daughter. "Your ma said you moved out."

Something about her seems to deflate at the mention of her mother. Almost as if she hadn't expected it. Her eyes take on that distant, far-off look that they did when they were kids.

Almost instantly, and with a fierceness of all those years of unanswered questions, he wonders what she is thinking. Izuko has always been notoriously hard for him to read.

He half-expects, or wishes, for her to tell him to leave, to fuck off—

But, Izuko is Izuko is Izuko—

"C'mon in. Come see what kind of squallier I'm living in." She teases this, but he notes the sarcasm in her voice. A touch of bitterness amongst the sweetness. She smiles as she digs her keys out of her purse. "You still hate coffee?"

"Ugh, fuckin' yeah," _I didn't go off the deep end of crazy like you._

She nods. "Cool. Let's have tea then."

And then, in a couple more steps, a jingle of keys, and a shove on the door, they are inside. It feels a little like leaving one world and entering another. She asks him to excuse the mess and makes more noise of pleasantries that he cannot quite follow as she steps out of his way; hanging up her jacket on the arm of a couch and then moving to pull back the curtains and open the blinds, letting sunlight wash over the room.

He hangs on the doormat for a moment taking in the apartment.

Bakugo is not sure that he is expecting, but its not a fully furnished apartment with semi-nice, matching furniture. He thinks, in a weird way, that it suits Izuko. The compact space with the loveseat and the chair, the long bookshelf stocked with novels and movies, the low glass coffee table. It's all her.

He lingers on the homier touches, drifting like an island, marooned in the center of Izuko's new life. He notes the dog-eared novels piled double on the bookshelves, the slim silver laptop half over a pile of blankets on the couch, and an empty mug with a magenta lipstick stain on the coffee table.

Izuko grabs the mug as she passes by, her stockinged feet making no noise on the carpet.

"Make yourself at home!" She calls over her shoulder as she slips further into the apartment. "I'm going to change out of my work clothes."

Bakugo stands awkwardly for several seconds, trying to jog his memory on the singular purpose of his mission. He is too keyed up to sit. He is too busy taking everything in.

His initial sweep tells him that Izuko doesn't live alone.

His next sweep tells him that Izuko lives with a guy.

He gets that red-flag feeling in the back of his mind, but tamps that down, _hard_. This is not a rescue mission. This is a stealth one. Gathering information for his mom and Mrs. Midoriya. Maybe ask her to consider coming home. And that's it.

In and out.

He has already taken stock of the pair of guy's shoes by the door, boots with heavy soles, too big for Izuko's tiny feet. Then, the ashtray on the side table. He wonders if the cigarettes would be a point of contention for said guy's acceptability for Mrs. Midoriya.

_Izuko is living with a guy_, he thinks and the thought does not settle in his mind. For some reason, he thinks of this situation in correlation with _other _girls. Ones he did not grow up with.

It stirs something in him. Something unbidden, something he does not want to dare to name least he be consumed by it. So, he drifts through the apartment. Izuko is still talking, a mile-a-minute as usual.

"—and its been so nice out lately, but this cold snap really knocked it out of me." She drifts back into the hallway conjoining the living room and kitchen. She has an empty laundry basket resting against her hip. She smiles, brightly, automatically. "So, how've you been?"

Bakugo feel like his brain has short-circuited with all the new intel. "Terrible."

"Oh," Her brows flick up, eyes rounding, mouth pursing. She is a terrible symphony of expressions. Everything she's thinking displayed for anybody to see. "Have you been feeling okay?"

Somehow, that seems like the most ridiculous question he has been asked thus far.

She is so much like her mother.

He laughs, bitterly. "Well, I come home for break to find you ran away—"

"I didn't _run_ away." Her mouth twists. "Wait, is that why you're here? Did my mom send you to come looking for me?" Bakugo dually surprised at the growing anger in her voice and then, unimpressed. "Is that why you're here?"

"Well, it's not like I came here of my own friggin' free will." Bakugo snaps back. "I'm have a lot to do over this break and I didn't exactly want to spend one of my free days that I could be training or hanging out with friends—"

"Oh!" She exclaims, genuine surprise coloring her tone. "You have friends?"

It takes a moment for the remark to hit, but when it does, it strikes like a thunderbolt. The sarcasm in her tone drips like poison, sinking into him.

The embers of the old flame stirring in his chest. That old predator-prey feeling that makes him arch like a big cat about to strike. Izuko just curls her lip, showing her own fangs.

"Why the hell else didja think I would come here?" He snarls.

Izuko has nothing for that. Or, if she does, she does not say it. She is studying him again. That same unnerving stare that slips under his skin like a stinger. Then, drawing herself up with a breath, Izuko neatly swoops past him into the kitchen. "If you're going to be a dick, you can get out."

He is left staring after her. Distantly, he can hear a bell signaling off a round one. The match goes to Izuko.

She had been petite and polite to him at the door, but dropped _that _as soon as he was inside? Like hell he is leaving now.

There is a table bisecting where the kitchen turns into the laundry room, its square, two chairs pulled together on the corner where the last occupants left them. He sits himself heavily down in one, back to the kitchen as Izuko circles into the laundry room.

It's a nice kitchen, all things considered. All new appliances and a coffeemaker taking up counter space, a half-full pot of coffee chilling on the console. It fills the space with the smell of it, that deep dark roasts his father favors that makes him think of empty stomachs and early mornings, the promise of breakfast hanging in the air. "So, do you like living in a city with a crime rate higher than the general population?"

He tries to ignore Izuko's busy-bodying over the drier. She yanks something lacy from the clothing rack, eyeing him to see if he noticed. When he doesn't react, she cools.

"Rent's cheap." She says, blithely, tucking the lacy fabric into the front pocket of a folded sweater. She glances at the closed machine, him, and then opens the washer as if needing something to do with her hands. "And it's not like this is a bad place. I've lived in worse."

Bakugo almost wants to question what could be worse than paying bills at seventeen, but Izuko turns.

From this angle, Bakugo is privy to a full view of Izuko's back. It sends another bolt through him like before, but different this time.

She had changed from her work uniform, but in the crammed hallway he had not noticed what she changed into. She has traded her pressed uniform into a baggy white tee, which is obviously not hers, and a pair of pink shorts. Short-shorts. Sleeping shorts.

Bakugo has been around girls in pajamas before. He lives in a co-ed dorm; he has begrudgingly attended many movie nights and all-night study sessions. But, his mind seems to separate the girls from his class and Izuko. There has always been a difference between other girls and Izuko.

His teeth sink into the corner of his lip when Izuko bends, showcasing the long line of her back dipping, her thighs clenching, her _ass—_

"I told him to throw these in for me when he left." She mutters to herself absently, and Bakugo snags on it, this little scrap of information. It's a confirmation to the steady evidence he has been gathering since he walked in the door.

The boots, the ashtray, the tee shirt, Mrs. Midoriya's words—

"Boyfriend?" he asks. It comes out quicker than he means, too low and broken down. As if not sure how to say the word in reference to anyone to Izuko. _Boy-friend. _It settles something strange and curling in him. It's annoying.

Izuko bangs her head on the side of the drier, yelping as she does so. He lifts a brow.

"Damnit," she whines and rubs her head. She spins to face him, one hand in her hair, the other on the drier as if giving her support. Her face is flushed pink. "Wait, wait! Who told you?"

"Your mom told my mom."

"Why did my mom tell your mom?"

At this, Bakugo rolls his eyes. "Why did you tell your mom if you didn't want her to know?"

"I didn't," Izuko frowns, pressing against her tender head. "She just guessed and happened to be right." She slams the drier closed and cranks the dial at the top for it to start. The machine rattles off in a steady thrum, background noise enough to distract his trailing thoughts. Izuko looks miffed. "Did she send you to spy?" It sounds probing. Izuko gathering her own intel.

"My mom _told _me to come here. She figured you would listen to me, or some shit."

"Listen to you about what?"

"I dunno, coming home or whatever? They didn't really make that clear."

She is frowning now, an imperious, displeased frown like a sulking child. Her arms wrap around herself, just under her breasts. He keeps his attention trained on her face, tracking the tug of her mouth, the pinch of her brows—

"What did she say about him?"

_Him. _Not even a name. No explanation, no new information to gather. But, its defensive.

"That she doesn't know anything about him."

"Well, that's because I haven't told her anything yet." Izuko touches the back of her neck, rubbing out the tension there. She looks at the ceiling. "I can't believe she sent you for that."

"She's worried," he bites out, almost unable to speak. "She doesn't know who you're living with these days. She's scared you're dating some big bad or into hard drugs or something like that."

"I'm not. I'm just . . . living with a guy my mom doesn't know."

"That sounds sketchy."

"Hmm," Izuko hums and shuffles passed him. Her bare feet smacking across the linoleum floor, black toenails, an ankle bracelet and a—

_A tattoo. _Bakugo almost falls out of his chair.

The black ink creates an incredibly delicate line work on her golden skin. A bustling, stitching of flowers and vines and blooms of red, red ink. It's pretty, but—

"You have a tattoo?"

"I have a few."

_Oh, okay then. _

She fills the tea kettle with water and then sets it on the burner. The spark of the burner feels like a spark of his quirk, snapping flame to life. He feels Izuko's frustration through it. Neither of them says anything for several seconds. Izuko watches the stove, Bakugo watches her.

He hates talking. He hates the emotional melee of things like this. Why didn't Mrs. Midoriya just come down here herself and meet the bastard?

"Doesn't really seem like you."

She snorts. "Its been a few years. Are you sure you know me?"

Bakugo rolls his eyes. "So, you moved out and now you think you get to be all edgy?"

"No, I think I haven't seen you in year and a half and you're in my house, judging me." The snap of her voice draws something through him like a line in the sand. Here is Izuko's stance. Here is where he will have to meet her if he wants to talk.

And she knows he won't meet her.

"I told you if you're going to be an ass, you can leave."

"No, you said if I'm going to be a _dick,_ I can leave."

She looks at him then, mouth curving as if fighting a smile. "You want to see if I'm being kept here against my will, right? You want to see if my boyfriend is mistreating me?"

Bakugo drags his gaze up from where they were fixated on a dark mark just visible through the paper-thin material of the borrowed tee shirt. Once he makes out the defined lines of a tattoo, another delicate knot of work, feminine but sharp. Another flower. Or, maybe a bird?

"Are you?"

"No."

It makes some tension ease from his shoulders. "You're only seventeen. Doesn't your landlord or whatever think its weird that you're shacking up with some older guy?"

Izuko snorts. "Did my mom tell you he was some old geezer?"

Bakugo pauses. "I dunno is he?"

"No."

There is something very final about that word.

Izuko hums again and pacing back to the laundry pile and putting more distance between them. He recalls the lesson from Lady Midnight on reading body language. How to look for signs of drunkenness and nervousness. How to gauge what mindset a person is in. He can never read Izuko for what she's thinking, but body language is almost universal.

She is closing herself off from him, putting distance, even physical distance. He pissed her off and now she's making him pay for it.

It feels a little like before, that feeling of falling, falling into those pools of stagnant green. That under-his-skin feeling that she is, in some way, judging him. Holding him to a higher standard than all the rest and then watching him fall, disappointed that he has, yet again, failed her.

He raps his knuckles against the table, but she keeps her back to him, content to fold clothes and be a little Suzy McHousewife rather than look at him. He wonders what happened to the little twerp who used to follow him around, playing heroes and villains, putting band-aids on his cuts and trading her All Might cards with him when he burned his on accident.

Despite the distance, even physical distance, he never thought he would miss it.

"Look," he says pointedly, gearing himself up for more than he wanted. "I'm not here to get between you, your little boyfriend, or your mom. I'm not here to drag you back home kickin' and screamin' or some shit. I don't have that kind of time and that's not my style. If you want to live here with some _guy _and not go to school, that's fine by me. It doesn't affect my day-to-day. If you like him enough to live with him . . . that's none of my business." He can taste the words as they leave his mouth and he hates every one of them. Hates the twist in his gut, hates how it makes him feel. "I just came to make sure you're okay, or whatever."

That draws another bout of silence.

Her steady green eyes are assessing him when he looks up, as if sizing him up for a challenge. "You just came to make sure I'm okay?"

"Was that not what I've been saying this whole time?" His eye twitches in irritation.

Izuko's lip twitches, a kind of smile, kind of a smirk and she crosses the kitchen again to the stove. Bakugo watches her take two mugs off the drying rack and then drops two tea bags into them, pouring in milk, and then—

"No sugar, Kacchan?"

That old nickname.

He did not expect his ears to perk like a dog if he ever heard it again, but he does.

"Pros don't take sugar." He grumbles and she sets the cups down on the table, allowing the milk to seep into the bags, just like her mom does.

"Right, you're gunning pro-hero these days. I heard Best Jeanist tried to whip your ass into shape."

"Yeah, he tried." Its surprising how easily conversation flows, even after the seep of years and the cavernous rot that grew between them from the years of not being friends. Izuko had always just been there; the quirkless girl-next-door, sweet as a cavity that swelled his mouth, and annoying to the point of provocation.

She is teasing now, all quip and wit, as she pours hot water over the milk, creating a plume for a London fog. He hardly recognizes the backbone in her, the affronted, annoyed way she throws back his snark as if it ran off her back.

_She has grown,_ he notes with a bit of wonder and annoyance. _She has changed. _

Finally, she sits beside him, bare knee bumping his momentarily. Her hands cup her own mug as she pries the lid off of the cookie tin she took down from the cabinet. "So, I hear Endeavors' kid is really making a name for himself. You gonna let him beat you this go around in the Sports Fest?"

That gets him going and he goes off about ole Half n' Half and his lack of technique. She listens with the same rapt attention as when they were young and he would demonstrate his quirk at her request. She would talk him up, make a big game of it, ask him questions he didn't even have the answers to yet. She makes him think.

In the midst of conversation, Izuko is leaning forward in her chair, finger drawing out words he cannot read across the table, her mouth running a mile-a-minute on stats and technique when he notices something on Izuko's skin.

It's not a tattoo like before, or a bruise like her mother feared, but something in between.

It's a hickey, half-hidden by the stretched collar of her shirt, laying dusty pink against her tan skin. Faint as an old bruise, but the intention of it a clear marker. Izuko has a boyfriend who wants other people to know it.

Briefly, he wonders what kind of quirk her big, scary boyfriend has.

* * *

One thing his mother said she always loved about Mrs. Midoriya is how she could kick someone out her house and make it seem like their idea. Its no surprise to Bakugo that her daughter possesses the same ability because suddenly he is at the door, slipping on his shoes, still half-arguing about the predictive stats for the Class 2-B kids when he realizes he's leaving.

He pauses, half-bent over his shoe when he looks up at her again, patiently waiting for him to prove her prediction on Purple Aizawa's comeback in the nth hour.

His eyes sweep over the living room again with a less critical eye than before. It's got all the touches and dressings of a home, lived in, but not trashed. The blankets tossed over the couch, the shoes haphazardly stacked, the ashtray; its all signs that that apartment is a home.

Izuko doesn't seem to want for anything if the pile of clothes on the drier and the stock of food in the kitchen were anything to go by. Whoever this guy was, he seemed to keep Izuko well and happy.

"So, you gonna tell my mom I'm fine?" She asks, sensing his hesitation.

He winces. "I'll tell her, but you should friggin' tell her. I don't want to get sent here every time you forget to call her."

Izuko shrugs, helplessly. "What can I say, I'm a busy girl these days."

He rolls his eyes. "The fuck-ever. Just call your mom, so my old lady won't send me here again." He waves dismissively and shrugs on his jacket. "So, you kickin' me out because your little boyfriend is coming home or something?"

Izuko smiles faintly. "Actually, I gotta go into work again tonight." He must make a face because she shrugs again. "Gotta pay that rent."

Bakugo did notice when she slipped out of the kitchen to the bedroom, she is dressed in a looser version of the outfit she wore earlier; the slimming black skirt, the crisp white blouse with a smart little bow-tie. She looks like a cocktail waitress. "How'd you get a job in a bar?" he asks.

"If I told you," she says quietly, smirking, "I might have to kill you."

He barks a laugh. "Like you could, you quirkless bastard."

"Oh, you know," She lifts her hand to her shoulder and does a gesture like she might flip her hair. The motion makes her earring chime, a musical sound of silver. She does not follow up from there. She pulls on her coat from before, its older, beaten leather and big enough to dwarf her athletic form.

"Do you actually own any clothes or do you just steal all your dude's stuff?"

She winks. "We're freaky like that. Sometimes I even make him wear my skirts."

The suggestion is so _out there, _Bakugo cannot help but recoil at the image. Even while loudly complaining to Izuko that it is TMI.

And then in a backwards turn of events, they are outside, the keys turning the knob, and then they are walking down the path towards the sidewalk. The night is velvet and cool, skimming its fingers on the exposed skin of his throat. Her hair looks almost black in the faint streetlights.

"Hey, take third to get to the station, some weird dudes have been hanging around fifth."

"Whatever, I can handle some nosebleed brats." He stares at her, taking in the short skirt and the length of her legs in her heels. "Do you want me to walk you to work or somethin'?"

"Nah, I work close by."

They pause for a moment, Izuko's body twisted in one direction and him twisted the other. They would part ways here. He knows this is the moment where he can grumble out his goodbyes and run off to the train station before the last one home leaves for the night. Izuko might like living in Kamino, but that doesn't mean he has to suffer.

Still, he wishes Izuko would just accept his invitation even to be nice. He feels weird leaving her alone out here. He feels weirder wanting to insist. He would mind less if her little punk of a boyfriend would show up to walk her to work. He wouldn't have even commented.

The moment stretches between them and Izuko's lips part, almost waiting for the goodbye, when Bakugo is taken by the impulse.

"Why did you move out anyway?"

It catches her off-guard. She faces him fully. Her voice is stilted when she speaks, eyes glazing over. "I needed to be by myself for a while. I had some stuff to figure out."

He snorts. "So, you dropped out of school and moved to this place?"

Izuko frowns harder, the same sulky expression as before. "That isn't what I wanted."

"What?"

"I didn't want that."

"Want what? A high school education?"

"No, I didn't want to become a financial analyst, or broker, or whatever. That is never what I wanted. I didn't want to do that."

"Well, you didn't have to go into the math field, dumbass. You didn't have to—"

"It felt like defeat."

"What did?"

Izuko looks frustrated now. "Going to school. Going after something I didn't care about. Going there meant giving up on the idea that I could ever be . . . that my body was . . ." She trails off, but now for long. She twists, uncomfortable, fingers knotting together. "I know I could never be a hero without a quirk, and I didn't want to place into some remedial class talking about action figures and family friendly heroes' impact on toy selling. That's not . . . me. That's not what I wanted. I needed to get away from . . . everyone who knew me before so I could figure myself out."

Part of him wants to call her bluff. Wants to drag her back to childhood room and make her look at her fangirl collection of All Might posters and action figures. He wants to shove in her face all the hero groundwork she has already done.

Even if it did, ultimately, amount to nothing.

"Its just like you said, Kacchan, I can never be a hero."

He remembers that.

He also remembers what he said _after _that.

That hits him like a cinderblock to the chest, cracking something he didn't know existed. The two of them stand together in awkward silence. Izuko's face tucking against her jacket collar and him staring at her—at this girl he thought he knew.

It's in that moment, he realizes that he doesn't.

The silence is painful now, but instead of teary doe-eyes, Izuko is staring at him as if daring him to speak. Daring him to eat his words, prove her wrong, _apologize. _His jaw locks, like a Rottweiler refusing to give. He _can't. _

"I've gotta get going. It was nice talking to you again."

She lifts her hand to wave goodbye before turning on her heel. Bakugo can only watch as she walks up the street, barely looking up as she crosses into traffic, and makes it to the other side and behind a corner—

It feels so lackluster and it strikes Bakugo as immediate as when he saw that mark on her shoulder. Izuko has moved on. She has moved out of her childhood and bloomed into something thorny he can't understand and doesn't think he ever will.

He teeters for a moment, stuck between following her and going home, when his phone buzzes in his pocket. Another missed call from the old lady. He answers on the third ring. "Yeah, what?"

"Katsuki." He can hear her teeth grinding. "Did you, or did you not, find Izuko-chan?"

Oh fuckin' hell. "Uh, yeah?"

"Then why didn't you _call me!?_"

"Because I was too busy trying to figure out why the fuck she moved out!" He relays all the information he gathered to his mom. Albeit, with a lot more screaming and glaring at fellow pedestrians as he gives his report. It's not as bad as hero work internships, but still twice as annoying.

When he gets to the turn off on third street, he takes it, ambling along the nearly empty street to the train station; deeper and deeper into the city.

* * *

Dabi is sitting with a warm glass of whiskey by the time Izuko walks into the bar.

It is a rare night, one where Shigaraki's foul mood keeps him in his apartment rather than blessing them with his presence, so the League guys are making a bit of a night out of it. Dressed out of costumes and masks, in civvies and hair dye, laying low until its time to make big moves.

There is a murmur of acknowledgement from their table when Izuko steps in. Twice with the standard several greetings. Magne with a polite nod. Himiko nearly upends the table in her hurry to get over to her. "Zuzu! You look so cute! Why do you always look so cute? You should be dating me, not Dabi-Downer over there," Himiko pillows her cheek on Izuko's shoulder, arms circling her waist. "He's been sulking for _hours_."

Izuko has her arms on Himiko's back, minding the knife the girl always has on her. Its automatic at this point. Her eyes snap to meet his and he stares back, not bothering to feign disinterest. Elbow on the bar, chin in hand, waiting.

She says something because Himiko giggles before spinning off to rejoin the other guys.

She glares at him, but its weak as she turns her nose up, shucking off his old leather jacket to reveal her white blouse unbuttoned to but her cropped cami on full display. The necklace he got her, the one with the green gem stone, rests at the valley of her breasts.

She catches him staring and lifts a brow archly at him, a silent question he answers by tipping his head, as if to appraise a work of art. He smiles as wide as his staples will allow, a facsimile of happiness. "How was your little visit?"

"Annoying," she mutters, folding the jacket over her arm like it wronged her somehow.

Kurogiri drifts over, eager to get some help behind the counter. "Good evening, Miss Midoriya."

Izuko greets him chipperly with everyone else with her good girl manners. "Evening, Kurogiri, long night?"

"No longer than usual." He hums and reaches for her jacket. "I'll put this in the back for you."

Izuko hands over the jacket easily and then slips onto the stool beside him. Dabi breaks the silence once Kurogiri is out of earshot at the back of the bar. "I saw the blinds open."

That had been their designated calling card to the other since Izuko moved in. Front blinds open meant that home may not be the safest place right now. Izuko's idea incase cell phones weren't an option and cops came to call. He is more identifiable than her at any rate. His scars do him no favors there.

He had been on his way home when he spotted her signal and did not even check his stride before walking passed the house, pulling his hoody low over his face and letting his feet carry him back to Kurogiri's bar.

He trusts Izuko's judgement as well as her ability to take care of herself.

Of course, that doesn't mean that he didn't fall back, circle the block for cops or other thugs before slipping through the back alley to peer into the window. That doesn't mean he didn't see that boy in his chair, in his apartment, with his girlfriend.

Dabi is not a jealous person. He knows himself. He knows his rules. He knows his girl.

She would not bring her childhood bully into their house being all hospitable if she did not have a motive behind it.

And he did not think for a moment that her motives might be that of what most would think if they saw their girl with another guy.

Izuko's not the cheating type. She's the leaving type.

And Bakugo Katsuki, her childhood crush and bully, is most definitely not going to be the guy she will eventually leave him for.

"Didn't think you would want to be there." She says listlessly. "I forgot to call my mom the other day and she freaked out. She made up this whole worst-case scenario that I'm in some controlling relationship and she sent Bakugo to come find me and . . . make sure I'm alright." She doesn't elaborate further. He doesn't ask. Simple. "Didn't think Shigaraki would appreciate you crisping him either."

"Only if he makes a dick out of himself."

"It's Bakugo," she says with a laugh, leaning back in her chair. "He _always _makes a dick out of himself."

"Well then, that would have been a shorter visit."

She stares a him a moment, mirth dancing in her eyes before she turns to ask Kurogiri for a whiskey sour. There is something spritely and energized about her he had not noticed before, the shimmer shakes of nervous energy buzzing her shoulders and anxious tap of her fingers.

That kid's visit must have shaken her up.

The thought makes his palms warm.

"You okay?" She piques at the question, drawing her finger through a sweaty glass ring.

"I'm . . . annoyed. I haven't seen him in so long." She is resigned to stillness when Kurogiri sets the glass in front of her. She thanks him with a smile and makes a promise to wash the glasses for him. Then, she looks at him, mouth quirking as if holding back something ugly. Kurogiri shifts over to Magne. "I knew I wasn't going to blow my cover, but—I can't remember why I thought he was my friend."

"Why'd you invite him in then?" Its innocent, but Izuko's glare isn't.

"I thought maybe I could use him." She admits, uncoiling her plan for him. "Bakugo may be a hot-head, but he has good instincts. He can read people's abilities almost as well as I can. He's also a U.A. student. I thought maybe," She turns her glass, rattling the ice against the sides. "Maybe if I started talking to him, I could get some insight on the U.A. students for the league, an insider's perspective."

"How'd that go?"

"Well at first, but he pissed me off." She says nothing more after that, deep in thought and Dabi turns back to his drink, compatibly.

He knows he has his own baggage, its written deep into his skin. The crosses he bares and the bridges he has burned; they are all his problem, his to deal with. He has no room in his own wallow to judge Izuko for her ticks and triggers. She respects his sutures and hair dye to the point of polite ignorance. Still, her relationship with the kid puzzles him.

"You're one of those girls who were told that if a boy is mean to you that he likes you, right?" He had thrown that out when they first met. A delicate courtship of barbs and insults, once-overs and short skirts. Not the thing of romance novels, but a way for one to test the other.

He already knew she was willing to fuck a guy with a Glasglow smile and a self-destructing quirk. He wanted to see how far that rabbit hole went. Make sure he knew her kind of crazy to see if it would ride well with his.

It was not a nail on the head, not the _ah-ha! _moment he had been vying for. Not the realization that she was just _really _into body-mod, or just interested in him as an experience. No, what he found had been a breaking point, a little bit of Katsuki Bakugo leftover in her soul.

He still remembers her eyes shifting and that big, fake smile on her face when she had looked at him, brow raising suggestively and said, "Well, maybe that's why I like big dangerous men."

Maybe. Maybe not.

Izuko renders the likes of Shigaraki harmless and that is no small feat in itself. For all her posturing, she is one of those intellectual types with analytical skills and grand ideas. He remembers being a little in awe of her, this quirkless girl who knew Stain as Chizome Akaguro, not the Hero Killer.

That is his Izuko, anyway.

All smiles. Thunderstorms on the inside.

He reaches out to her, tugging at one of her short, green curls, drawing her from her thoughts. "What're you thinking?" he asks, voice low and gravel under the humdrum of the bar. His fingers ghost over her earrings, the dangling silver cool to the touch; cooler still than the red curve of her ear.

She touches his chin, thumb over the line of staples. The touch is surprisingly gentle, almost tender. It makes something in his stomach tighten, calling on that old feeling he thought was almost shriveled in his chest. She is always so gentle, so considerate with him. Especially when she does not need to be.

On several occasions, he is tempted to ask her why the fuck she wastes her time with him. On several other occasions, he is tempted to ask himself why he wastes all his time with her. Nothing about it made sense.

It is almost animal.

Like the moment back then, the two of them recognizing in themselves something similar and broken and hungry. Then, something that could feed the other.

Falling into bed with her had been one thing. Moving her into his apartment had been another.

"I'm going to tell Shigaraki to lift my ban on Bakugo." She says finally.

He studies her for several seconds. "You sure about that?" He asks, hand sliding against her thigh to the curve of her hip. Her other hand slides against the back of his neck, trailing her nails so he can feel her through the scar tissue.

"I'm sure," she says, finally and then, "He's become a liability to the cause."

Something exhales in his chest, like a balloon letting out air. Something he did not know he was holding, but suspected had been expanding since he walked in, since he saw her with that kid, since he let her in.

Izuko is the leaving type. He has seen her do it before, packing up her life neatly into bags, into boxes, into cars and taking off. Several bad boyfriends in the dust and their bones much worse for wear.

She would not leave him for that kid.

But she could leave him for what she could still have. A home with her mother in a good neighborhood, a good job doing something boring but useful, a relationship with someone normal.

And every time, she digs her heels in, looks him in the eye and says no.

He kisses her then, heedless of the bar around them. Sweet relief and exhaustion pouring into the kiss, he takes advantage of her surprised gasp to sweep his tongue across her bottom lip, and relishes the taste of her moan. For someone with a fire quirk, Dabi is always shocked at just how warm she is, inside and out. He is leaning into it as enraptured with her as he is with her hands on his unscarred skin.

He feels her nails digging against his scalp, urging him on and dragging her mouth across his, teeth on his lip, against the staple she had just been stroking.

Distantly, he can hear wolf-whistles and shouts for them to get a room.

He is not usually into PDA. Especially not like this.

But he would if Izuko asked.

Hold her hand while burning down a building if she wanted.

They part after a moment, Izuko leaning forward in her seat, cheeks dusted pink.

His hand rubs against the curve of her thigh. "So, you wanna tell Shigaraki about your change of heart, or?" He trails off, giving an absentminded squeeze. His eyes shift to the back of the bar. "I could walk you up that private stairwell."

"Fuck you," She snaps and digs her nails in for good measure. She kisses him again, angling her face to slot her mouth against his slow and sweet. His lips curl under hers. "I can tell him tomorrow . . . after my shift."

Dabi quirks his brow. "Hm, you think you're going to work your shift?"

"I think I'm going to work my shift." She hums under her breath, leaning in to peck his mouth while scratching his scalp. "And you're going to watch me and then walk me home like a lady."

"I didn't get my nap today."

"We can both take a _nap _later." She promises and wiggles out of his grip, just as quick, she flips onto the bar and behind the counter. She grins at him, for real this time, that smile that is like sunshine and mischief and everything he didn't know he missed. "Refresh your drink, _sir_?" She winks, leaning over to grab his glass for him.

As she is walking away, he starts to feel that sinking feeling again. That one he has felt for awhile now. It steals the smirk off his face and lulls him into a somber.

It will end someday.

It will. It has to.

He has no romantic notions about him and Izuko and forever after or anything like that. For now, though, they are together and they will do with that whatever they want. Dabi settles his elbows on the counter and leans forward when she returns with his drink.

* * *

hello, i finished finals and i finished this two months ago, but hated it so i did nothing with it

truth is, i kinda just want to write a shitty/weird villain!fem!deku fic with all my self-indulgent tropes. i just wanna live my life, yo. also, the deku/dabi thing isn't lasting. i'm just gonna run with whatever i want from here out, i just needed to get the dabi/deku out of my system and i liked this idea.

my fem-villain-deku is kind of a wild card. at first, she is not really a villain, she is just a disciple of Stain, but now that he's in jail, she is running with shigaraki and co. we'll see how long that lasts, but they kind of need her and she kind of needs them. i like found families okay? not that i'm going to fluff this. nothing about this is fluffy. especially bakugo's feelings. as fuzzy as they make him, he cannot reconcile being a villain in deku's story. she's the villain in his though and she hates it even more. but, that's all for later because my mind latches onto ideas like a steel trap.

so, for now, this is just my really weird little idea.

-cafeanna


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